The Sermons of Charles Wesley

This book brings to publication for the first time all of the famous hymn-writer Charles Wesley's sermon material. All but three of the twenty-three texts here presented have been reconstructed from manuscript sources. The book includes four substantial introductory chapters which place Charles Wesley's preaching in the context of early Methodism and the eighteenth century more generally. Annotations on the texts themselves are substantially text-critical and include discussion of Charles's use of Byrom's shorthand, the script in which a significant portion of the material is written. Other notes include an attempt to trace Charles's use of sources, specifically the Bible, the Homilies, and the Book of Common Prayer.